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AG's Wildcat Report - Dispatches on the Wildcats, from Anthony Gimino

Spring football is here; is Arizona better than seventh in the Pac-10?

by on Mar. 05, 2010, under Sports
Stoops

Mike Stoops has led Arizona to back-to-back 8-5 records.

Last impressions matter, which is why expectations are again rather modest for the Arizona football team, which begins spring practice Friday.

The last time we saw the Cats on the field it was as if they weren’t on the field at all. With that 33-0 stink bomb against Nebraska, the perception of Mike Stoops‘ program went from “program on the rise” to “who are they again?”

That Holiday Bowl loss — combined with the departures of both coordinators, and tight end Rob Gronkowski‘s decision to enter the NFL Draft — has given anybody making preseason predictions reason to be bearish on the Wildcats, who were 8-5 last season.

ESPN.com’s Ted Miller picks Arizona seventh in his spring power rankings. He writes:

The Wildcats must replace 12 starters and two coordinators. That’s a lot of turnover. On the plus side, quarterback Nick Foles has a lot of skill around him and defensive ends Ricky Elmore and Brooks Reed could be the best pass rushing combo in the Pac-10.

CollegeFootballNews.com has Arizona eighth in the league in its pre-preseason rankings, although the writing staff was fairly optimistic in its writeup:

While the Holiday Bowl dress down gave Arizona a sobering measuring stick, the program has to like where it’s headed. Back-to-back postseason invites have done wonders for its psyche and its ability to recruit throughout the West. There’ll be losses on both sides of the ball, but nothing so devastating that the ‘Cats can’t keep rolling under head coach Mike Stoops. Another season with QB Nick Foles will help the offense, as will the return to health of RB Nic Grigsby. He’s too valuable to be in and out of the lineup, as he was throughout 2009.

I think both of those predictions are too low. But at this early stage, it’s not easy to pick among a muddled Pac-10 middle. Much like last season.

I spoke Thursday with the Seattle Times’ Bob Condotta, who writes the Pac-10 report for Lindy’s College Football Annuals, picking the preseason all-conference teams and predicting the order of finish. His early thought on Arizona: Fourth or fifth.

As the Senior Editor of Lindy’s, I get to overrule whatever Condotta submits, but that sounds like an appropriate Arizona prediction to me.

UA FOOTBALL NOTES
Construction has begun on Arizona’s practice field, which is being extended to Sixth Street and will include areas of artificial turf. UA will have practice at the stadium and at Salpointe High School during the spring. … Former UA All-American and Jim Thorpe Award winner Antoine Cason was in attendance for Thursday night’s Arizona-UCLA basketball game. … Ex-UA cornerback Devin Ross had the second-best vertical jump among cornerbacks who worked out at the NFL combine. He had a jump of 40 inches. He ran about a 4.6 40-yard dash. … Defensive tackle Earl Mitchell helped himself with his combine workout. He was considered a “riser” by SI.com, which wrote: “Mitchell looked amazingly athletic for a defensive tackle who weighed in at 296. He was fast in the 40, twice breaking 4.75 seconds on stop watches, then practiced to that speed during drills.”

This entry was posted on Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 3:26 am and is filed under Sports. Tags for this post: , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  • bigdog

    Again another year with no respect-last year the great “predictors” had the Wildcats at 8th in the Pac 10. My beef is the U of A football website which is already setting positions for the team prior to the FIRST practice. What kind of motivation for the new players if the coaches have already set the positions with players- second beef a 6TH YEAR !! eligible for Grant!! Really motivates those that were lead to believe by the coaching staff that 2 o-line positions were available. The coaches knew Grant was coming back for his 6TH!! YEAR  and should have been honest to the backups about this situation- great for the short term fix- lousey for future recruiting when the coaches are going to mislead the players on future opportunities. Bear Down.

  • mikeke

    Arizona loses more starters than anyone i nthe Pac 10 and you don’t think there will be any slide?  OSU, Oregon, USC, Cal, Stanford, Wash, UCLA loses alot less and most of them recruited better than Arizona the last 2 years, so I would not count on Arizona getting help there.  I think it is generally a toss up between 3-8, but with both coordinators gone also, makes it wasier to pick Arizona.

    • Anthony Gimino

      I don’t know about UCLA losing a lot less. The Bruins lose the guts of their defense in Brian Price, Reggie Carter and Alterraun Verner. I’ll take Foles over their QBs. They have promising young playmakers … but that’s the thing — they’re still promising and not yet productive. Their starting left tackle is taking a church mission and the offensive line has been a mess for two seasons. Arizona has beaten UCLA straight up for two years.
      Now, you can make a leap of faith and say this is the season that UCLA’s talented youth kicks in … but I’m inclined to think Arizona, on paper, deserves to be ahead of the Bruins.
      But, as I wrote, it’s all very close in the middle again. Every team has something you can nitpick.

      • mikeke

        Every team loses players, UCLA is no exception.

         yes they lose 3 very high end players on defense.  They also signed the #2 DL class and the #3 LBer class in the nation.  They have a couple of highly rated LBers coming of their redshirts and Steve Sloan was the starting MLB 2 years ago that was supplanted by Reggie Carter.  I think Arizona is planning on having a couple of JC players to play at 2 linebacker positions.  I think UCLA is in the better position.  They lost Verner in their defensive backfield and you lost Cam Nelson and Devin Ross, UCLA seems to come out on the better on that also.  They lost 1 starting DT and 2 backups and 1 DE.  UCLA has 1 DE that was their best pass rusher that broke his jaw in Fall scrimmage and they also recruited one of the top DEs in the nation.  You lost both DTs.  UCLA fares no worse on the DL than Arizzona.

          They lose 1 linemen and 2 of their 2 deep, but return 4 and Kia was a 2 year starter that did not play this last year that will be back next year.
             They also will have 2 high end transfers on offense that certainly will be better than the ones they replace.  .  One starter is their #3 receiver ( Austin) and he will be replaced by a transfer from Colo (Josh Smith) that had better stats than Austin as true freshman.  Tight end Joe Fauria is much better than what they lost.  The only other position they lose on offense is FB.  A fullback plays only about 30% of UCLA’s plays and is least critical position.  So in essense, UCLA loses 1 linemen and 1 FB on offense.  But for arguement sake I will say they lose 4.

        UCLA loses 5 starters on defense and 4 on offense

        Arizona loses 4 on offense and 7 on defense

        Arizona loses more.
        The bigger advantage for UCLA is that they recruited 3 top 10 classes the last 3 years and it is more likely that they will have guys that can make an immediate impact over Arizona’s recruits and RS Freshmen.

        Arizona repalces al ltheir linebackers and as it stands they are hoping a couple of JC recruits work out.  vs UCLA’s promising wide receivers?  Rosario did very well (had more rec. yards than any Arizona receiver)and Embry did also.  With the addition of Smith (1,663 yards total offense as a true soph), this will be one of the better receiving groups in the Pac 10

        • Anthony Gimino

          Thanks for the breakdown. As I said, some of this is a matter of faith. It’s a prediction, not a science. You like UCLA’s young guys better than Arizona’s young guys. You like UCLA’s transfers and redshirts better than Arizona’s transfers and redshirts. Who knows? I thought all that young talent at RB would kick in for the Bruins last season. It didn’t. Maybe this will be the year.
           
          So, by your count, Arizona loses two more starters than UCLA. That is supposed to make up for a three-game difference from last season in the Pac-10 standings? I don’t think so, especially when I still give the edge to Arizona at QB (among other spots).
           
          UCLA’s has some superb pieces — Moore, Ayers, Forbath … and Rosario came on late in the season. I most certainly think UCLA is on a positive path — and everybody loves highly-rated recruiting classes — but I still think UCLA is more like two years away from a big breakthrough. We’ll see.

          • mikeke

            I agree that each team has possibilities and hopes and with a little luck a couple of teams breaks out or with a little bad luck, a couple of teams tank.

            I think UCLA will probably be middle of the pack (3rd – 8th) next year (as it seems like the majority of Pac 10 teams), but they will only have anywhere between 2 and 4 senior starters (David Carter + Reginald Stokes for sure and possibly Micah Kia and if somehow C Ramirez finds an awakening).  2011 UCLA could be huge 

          • mikeke

            So, by your count, Arizona loses two more starters than UCLA. That is supposed to make up for a three-game difference from last season in the Pac-10 standings?

            Actually I was being very conservative.  Espn says you lose 12.  UCLA loses Austin and is called a starter, but in fact he was our #3 receiver and Josh Smith is a proven commodity with better stats as a true freshmen than Austin had as a senior.  Also,  UCLA lost it’s quarterback for a month in the middle of the season and with having his jaw wired for 4 weeks, he was fairly innefective for 3 games or so.  Also, the bulk of the starters lost on offense were the least impact positions for the most part  TE, FB and WR (and again he was starter in name only,  the bulk of the passes went to Rosario and Embry).  I can’t say how the quality of your replacements are, but you are in a situation where, at the moment, you are replacing at least 2 starters with JC transfers.  That is a little shaky.  UCLA is shaky in replacing Brian Price also with unproven players, but players that have been on the team for a couple of years.  We lost a DE, and the 2 main candidates for replacement were ranked in the top 6 at their positions in 2008 and 2009.  Same with our outside linebacker.   Aaron Hester will replace Verner and he was slotted to start last year but he broke his leg the 1st game. 
              So, I think there is a good possibility that Arizona losing both coordinators and 12 starters they could take a step back this year of 1 or 2 games and I think UCLA will go either 6-3 in the Pac 10 or 5-4.

        • Adolf Oliver Bush

          No one here cares about UCLA football.

          • Mike Baldwin

            “No one here cares about UCLA football.”
            THANK YOU!! I like reading the comments from Arizona fans. UCLA probably has at least 20 more media sources than Arizona, and you have to come clog up 1 of our 3 sources with your UCLA bs.

  • mikeke

    that is fine that you don’t want to hear about UCLA, but the gist of the article was that Arizona should be ranked higher than several Pac 10 teams.  The author of the article is the one who mentioned UCLA in a specific manner and I gave my reasons in a specific manner the details of some of UCLA”s strengths and weaknesses in comparison to Arizona.  You cant say Arizona will be in a certain place in a vacuum.  You need a detail comparison with other teams and how your team will stand up to other teams.  Especially in college football where you might lose a 1/4 of your team each year to graduation and compare it to other teams that might lose more or less. 

    • Anthony Gimino

      mikeke,
       
      I have twice explained in the comments section why I think Arizona should be ahead of UCLA. Arizona’s losses in numbers might be slightly greater, but I think some of UCLA’s defensive losses were more significant. We both concede that it should be very tight in the middle of the Pac-10, with little margin of error … so let’s leave it at that.
       
      I appreciate you taking the time to break down UCLA’s situation, but we’re just going around in circles now.

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